The idea for an epic road trip for the month of June came from the thought that it would be cheaper to ship our car from the mainland to Hawai’i if we drove it to the port in Long Beach, California. We also thought Henry would want to start the summer at Matt’s old sleep away camp in Indiana, so Indiana to Los Angeles became the start and end points of our trip. (In the end, Henry did not want to go to camp.)

Adventures

Highs

So.Many.Fun.Adventures this month!

We drove from Austin, Texas, to Indiana, Bloomington, in a single day. We used the Roadside America app to find stops … Read More

I wish I could say that the month leading up to our departure was smooth. Spoiler Alert: It wasn’t!

Even though we had been planning the trip for a very long time, there were many things that had to get done at the last-minute. And the last-minute things were pretty major things, such as finding someone to rent out our home and moving the entire contents of our home into a storage unit.

To make matters worse, we agreed to let our tenants move in a day after school got out. As it is, the end of the school year is a very busy time. So we were attending graduations … Read More

One of the hardest parts about planning a Family Gap Year was getting our house rented. It was hard because it was 1) scary and 2) uncertain and 3) a non-negotiable. We absolutely had to rent out our house in order to pay for our mortgage or else we wouldn’t be able to afford a Family Gap Year.

And it’s not something you can reliably do far in advance! We listed our house on Zillow at the beginning of April for a June 1 move-in date. We got a signed lease on May 7th. Phew! I’m glad that stress is behind us.

We increased the stress for ourselves because we … Read More